Bias for Action -Part I : What is Stopping You?

“The distance between your dreams and reality is called action” – Unknown

“Eighty percent of success Is showing up.” -Woody Allen

“I never dreamed about success, I worked for it.” -Estee Lauder

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” -Wayne Gretzky

Have you heard these quotes before or any like them? There are quotes like this flying around everywhere and I’m definitely guilty of posting them on Instagram myself. I won’t lie, I love these kinds of quotes. I love up lifting quotes, but more importantly, I love quotes that talk about taking action.

There is this thing that exists called a bias for action. Mel Robbins talks about it in her book the 5 Second Rule, as do many other authors. Basically, what it boils down to is pretty simple, stop thinking and start doing, stop dreaming and start …take action!

There are some people who are truly shining examples of what it looks like to have a bias for action. These people are the ones who blow our mind with how full of life, open to living, and how successful and confident they seem. They are doers. The truth is anyone can be a doer. We may not all end up living a life as wildly successful and exciting as Sir Richard Branson, for example, but we can have a rich full life. The key is having a bias for action. Want to know how?

First off, what we need to do is identify the things we are using to avoid taking action. We all have ways to avoid the hard things and even the not so hard things in life. We all know we do it. We avoid things we just don’t want to do. The more we do this the more we move away from having a bias toward action. That is why it is important to identify your methods for avoiding. Here is a list of several common ones, many of which I am or have been guilty of myself.

Research. I can research like nobody’s business. It’s amazing the information I can gather and ultimately do little with it. You may not think this is a common one, but how often are you on Pinterest? How many items did you pin to cook for dinner last night? Maybe cooking isn’t your thing, but I bet there is something you like to do and I’m willing to bet you have found yourself getting lost in looking for information or ideas on the subject versus actually doing. Maybe sports are your things, how many articles did you read about your sports team and their stats, where did that get you?

Over Planning. Granted writing down a plan can be a form of action, but you can’t plan, re-plan, fix the plan, and repeat over and over. At some point, what you are doing is called avoiding. A plan is meant to be an estimated course of action that is honed over time, it doesn’t have to be perfect.

Excuses. Oh, I can’t work on that today, I really need to “insert numerous excuses here.” I can come up with a thousand ways to avoid. Let’s not even talk about the numerous excuses I can come up with for not going to the gym. Excuses are little lies that we tell ourselves and others and we often know it when we are doing it, but do it anyways. When it comes to excuses there are two main reasons we do it, we either really don’t want to do whatever it is or we are scared.

Overthinking. I can overthink things to the point that I’ve missed the window of opportunity. It’s amazing how many times I can talk myself in and out of something in a five-minute time span. I do it all the time. The longer you think about something the more excuses you are going to come up with to not do it. Fear is going to slowly sneak in and before you know it…fear has won and you are right where you started- nowhere.

Mindless Tasks. How often do you find yourself mindlessly scrolling through Facebook, Instagram, E-mail? Or how about binge watching Netflix? Ok, I still do that one sometimes… Yes, we all need down time, but how much is it us really doing these tasks to relax vs mindlessly using them to avoid doing what we know we need to be doing?

Lack of Focus. Sometimes we want to do too much. We take on too much, we are overwhelmed and end up going in circles getting nothing done. Sometimes we can’t help but have a lack of focus, like right now as I write this my child and dog are making some serious racket. It definitely hurts the focus when every two seconds I hear “Pearly” yelled across the living room followed by the crinkle crinkle sound of some toy that sounds like a water bottle being crumpled up.

These things are a fact of life. Interestingly enough, avoidance tactics often don’t start out as avoidance tactics. They often start out as good intentioned tasks. Tasks that were intended to help take action or relax us, but over time they became bad habits that prevent a bias for action.

Have you figured out which ones you’re guilty of? Are they listed above? If not, share what you discovered and maybe it will help someone else identify what is stopping them.

Identifying the road blocks is the first step to removing them and getting closer to a bias for action. Check back later this week for Part II of this post and let’s talk about having a bias toward action.

If you found this post interesting, share, like and comment below. What are your insights on the topic?

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Published by Tonya

After growing up in the equivalent of a lifetime movie, I broke free of the insanity! I worked my way through college, and was fortunate enough to create a great life. I believe we should never take ourselves too seriously, be honest with who we are, and continue to strive and improve. Thus, I'm constantly learning new things and working to be the best me I can be. I am fascinated by psychology, people, and problem solving. Tonya Takes It On is my place to share my interpretations of what I've learned, tips from my personal experiences and a splash of dry humor and sarcasm for those who catch it.
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